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The Three-Legged Race Large community picnics were a staple of summer when I was growing up. One of the activities was the three-legged race. The way it works is that you pair up with a partner. Your leg is tied to your teammates leg. The goal is to move as fast as you can...

Pursuit of Happiness This year’s Pageant of the Masters show is entitled, “Pursuit of Happiness.” My initial reaction was “wow,” they’re doing a show about the 1963 Rockefeller marriage and the pursuit of Happy Rockefeller by the angry spouses and families left behind. But...

Experience, Investigation And Action Predicting the future is a popular activity. Less favorable results come from the overly confident. Several years ago the CEO of Microsoft dismissed the iPhone for its high cost and lack of a keyboard. He said, “There’s no chance that the...

Surprises Behind Cuba’s Socialist Curtain, Part 2 Jandres Burgos was born in the worst ghetto of Puerto Rico. His father abandoned his family early on. His mother, quite beautiful, became the mistress of the biggest drug lord on the island. Jandres, as a 10-year old, remembers...

The Dead is Alive and Well Last weekend in San Francisco was an historic event that brought people of all stripes together in sacred union. I’m not talking about gay pride. It was the start of the Grateful Dead’s Fare Thee Well tour; five performances they swear will be their...

Seeing Beyond a Label “You should be aware that not all gays feel well represented by Bob Gentry,” a gay politico told me. “Why not?” I responded. It was 1990 or thereabouts and I was a new naïve councilmember. I didn’t know Bob Gentry when I was first elected, except as a...

Power Stocks Stocks finished the June quarter with a whimper. As the simmering Euro crisis with Greece finally boiled over, markets dipped everywhere and then began coming back when investors realized that most other economies would easily survive the possible failure of the...

Curmudgeons, Complainers Clog Laguna One of the advantages of living in a small town is that residents have a voice in participatory government. On occasion our city council shows some vision and leadership, which is what we elect them for. Then a group of folks decide they don’t...

Three Amigos of Aliso Creek No, this is not a tale about three South Laguna gunslingers dueling at high noon with a sheriff’s posse from “big town,” some four miles north of here. Instead, armed with nothing more than our thoughts and dedication to protecting our local ocean,...

Roll Call I had a dream the other night… The City Council looked up and noticed people missing. Poof, appointees had disappeared into thin air. “Where are all our appointees?” Nobody knew. Nobody answered. For the first time in Laguna history, the room was silent. The council was...

Keeping Stocks On Course The stock market indices continue to crawl toward record highs without attracting much interest and even less enthusiasm. Despite the usual sound and fury, the overall market gains are tepid with both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500...

Kill The Grass What are lawns, and what is their purpose beyond easily identifying where a dog craps? When did sod and turf become ubiquitous replacements for natural landscapes? Well, we can thank our bloody forbearers, the British. You see, in our never-ending Anglo-Envy,...

Historic Preservation, Working or Not? That’s the question the Heritage Committee, Planning Commission and City Council will be struggling with in the months to come. The city’s historical preservation consultant has been examining the inventory of historic properties that was...

Farewell Thank you Michael Ray. This is my farewell after reading your column, “Surprises Behind Cuba’s Socialist Curtain.” I’m off to Cuba. I bought a 1957 Chevy, waterproofed it into a dinghy and expect to land and be met, as you describe, by low cut, skintight mini skirted...

A Father’s Day Tribute My father lives vividly in my memory. His artistic hands, him playing the piano with starts and spurts of passion, the smell of his pipe smoke and the intensity in his eyes and the set of his jaw. How he would uncharacteristically chuckle out loud at...